FREDON — When Jacob Hunt went away to college at the University of Delaware’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, he didn’t think he would be returning to the family-owned Windy Brow Farms a year after graduating.

But while at school, the now 24-year-old was heavily involved in developing community outreach for the UDairy Creamery, where he worked as the assistant manager. The experience allowed him to be a part of creating the creamery from the ground up.

His work at the creamery led to Hunt’s recently being honored by the White House and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., as a “Champion of Change,” which is defined as a leader who is doing extraordinary things to build the bench for the next generation of farming and ranching.

Hunt and Melinda Litvinas, the manager of the UDairy Creamery, were honored along with 15 others in a program that featured U.S. Deputy Agriculture Secretary Krysta Harden, who discussed efforts to ensure that beginning farmers and newcomers to the agriculture field have access to supportive programs.

“It was a very humbling experience,” Hunt said. “To be in a room with people who are doing extraordinary, amazing things in the country” was great.

After graduating from college with a degree in animal sciences and agricultural marketing, Hunt worked at the Hopkins Farm Creamery on the Green Acres Farm in southern Delaware.

There, he said, “I really got the necessary experience on the production side of things.”

He spent a year in Delaware, but eventually decided to return to Windy Brow Farms, located on Route 519 just south of Newton, which his parents, Jim and Linda Hunt, have owned for 15 years.

Farming is in Hunt’s blood. For the past 200 years or so, his family has been involved in some capacity of farming.

“We were always linked in one way or another,” Hunt said.

When he returned to Windy Brow Farms, he brought the creamery concept with him and expanded his family’s business by opening a creamery. He became the managing partner at Windy Brow Farms LLC and the Cow’s Brow Creamery.

Now about a year into his own creamery venture, Hunt said the business is growing.

“We’ve got something for everybody,” he said of the of the creamery’s 17 flavors. Some of those flavors are traditional — vanilla, chocolate and strawberry — and about eight to 10 flavors are seasonal.

The creamery even makes ice cream sandwiches.

“Mainly our seasonal flavors are either crazy ideas we have, or things we do that use” products from Windy Brow. Current flavors include a roasted peach and basil sorbet, and snapping turtle, which is vanilla with caramel, among many others.

Hunt said the creamery switches seasonal flavors about every six weeks.

“We’re still just trying to get the word out there,” Hunt said of raising public awareness about the business. But already, he has struck up wholesale deals with Greene’s Beans in Sparta, and the ice cream is available to order at the Mohawk House in Sparta.

“We’re trying to do things as local as possible,” Hunt said. He said the creamery sources its dairy mix from Upstate Niagara, a dairy cooperative in upstate New York, which Hunt said is the closest business that produces the quality of mix he requires for his ice cream.

Hunt described the dairy mix as cream and sugar mixed with any stabilizer necessary to ensure quality production. The mix is unflavored but sweet.

Most of the other ingredients are home-grown at Windy Brow.

“(I’m) expanding into areas that allow us to use our own products, (or) things we grow on the farm.”

Hunt recounted the events in Washington and said discussions mainly pertained to the country’s future in agriculture and how to ensure the field’s continued growth.

The solutions: Integrate more agriculture programs into the education system and create government support that will allow farmers with limited capital the means to grow.

It’s really important that young people interested in agriculture have the proper classes offered to them in school, Hunt said.

“I went to work for the largest dairy farm in Delaware, and the experience that I got from that led me to open up my own business,” he said.

For farmers in today’s harsh economic climate, Hunt said that in order to grow, farmers need “to have some sort of diversification plan, because that’s really the only way small family farms can survive.”

To those interested in the agriculture profession, Hunt had three words of advice: “Don’t give up.”

“Just be persistent. Look for all of the opportunities that are out there for young farmers, both through USDA and state programs.”

“Don’t give up,” he echoed, “because you’re going to have to go out in the field everyday and not give up when you see something fail.”